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What have you done for me lately? Well, if you pose that question to one of the advertising and marketing professional organizations, the answer is plenty…plenty that you may not be aware of. (more…)

Starmark Announces Opening of New Office in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Starmark President Jacqui Hartnett announces new San Juan office now open. At a recent opening party, dignitaries from private business, government and hospitality executives, joined Starmark’s management team including Brett Circe, V.P. of Interactive Services, and Mickey Espada, V.P. of Latin America & Caribbean Markets, who heads up Starmark’s Puerto Rico office. Photos from the reception are available on Starmark’s Facebook page.
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SMS and Email Marketing: Big Differences, Big Opportunities

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal

Many marketers think using Short Message Service (SMS) for marketing on cellphones may be too personal and an infringement on the recipient. The good news is that it is both personal and very universal, since 98 percent of cell phones can receive SMS messages.

The other good news is that, from the beginning, the SMS system has had controls in place to avoid the proliferation of problems similar to those experienced early on from email spam.

The Mobile Marketing Association, with the help of the telecommunications carriers, agreed to a code of conduct that does not allow spamming. And, at any time, even if consumers have previously opted in, they can opt out by simply texting back the word “STOP.”

Marketers should feel secure about building their opt-in SMS lists. In essence, SMS lists cannot be bought, so marketers must build opt-in lists through their own contacts with customers and prospects. And, in doing so, they must be aware of the MMA code of conduct. The guideline is based on six “C words,” each of which could be preceded with the word “user”: choice, control, customization, consideration, constraint and confidentiality.

Apps can be expensive to produce, while a SMS code is very cost-effective and truly more personal.

Another misconception is that most cellphone users must pay per text. While some programs (like “American Idol”) charge for a text, most texters have unlimited message programs to avoid additional charges.

There are many productive ways to incorporate SMS into your marketing program.

The first and most important thing you can do is to use your SMS codes in your print advertising so you begin to build relationships and gather your SMS audience. Offering a discount or some information that’s valuable to your target prospect is a way to make them use the code, and thereby start the relationship.

Some local restaurants are aggressively gathering their SMS lists. Duffy’s Sports Grill in Fort Lauderdale asks for your phone number to text you when your table is ready – an excellent strategy to build a community of customers.

Visa’s SMS opt-in list serves up several text messages monthly from retail brands with coupons as high as $100, so there is no remorse about the opt-in.

Sports teams, podcasts and radio shows find great success in using SMS as a reminder that they will be airing during certain times, and can give an outline of programming details.

It is essential to determine a consistent pattern of usage for your list – not too much and not too infrequent – otherwise you will lose your audience to opting-out. Therefore, once you start a pattern of messaging, make sure that you pattern it in such a way that the material/messaging is consistent, succinct, entertaining and informative. If you accomplish this, your messaging will be a welcome addition to busy digital lifestyles.

To acquire opt-ins, use a keyword/SMS short code combination with a value incentive. An example is: PERKS/DUNKIN. With an incentive, it reads: “Text PERKS to DUNKIN for a free medium coffee.”

Whether it’s coupons, discounts or sweepstakes, you need to provide a valuable consideration in order for someone to opt-in to your list.

This is a marketing technology whose time is now that you can use creatively in your marketing. The amazing benefit is that the overwhelming majority of text messages are read, so your messaging won’t be missed. First, know the rules and begin building your SMS lists. Then create valuable messaging that will resonate with your audience and provide benefit to your company. The results of a well-planned texting effort will provide profits now and in the future.

Why Should You Keep Your Customers Engaged In Between Campaigns?

 

If you’re an advertising professional, then you understand the key components of sound marketing strategy: how to build and launch a campaign, install metrics, conduct postmortem analysis; in hopes of increasing awareness, consideration and conversion; and ultimately, reaching that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – brand loyalty. But have you considered what to do during the critical time period “in between” campaigns to keep your brand alive? (more…)

Starmark Promotes Savvy Tourism Marketer Lisa Hoffman to VP, Client Services

With 14 years experience in travel, tourism and destination marketing, Lisa Hoffman has been promoted to Vice President, Client Services of Starmark International, Inc., according to an announcement today by Jacqui Hartnett, the marketing agency’s president. (more…)

The Google Golden Ticket: Is Google+ Really All That Glitters?

It’s no surprise in social media circles that the hottest ticket lately has been the Golden Ticket invite to the beta launch of Google+. That’s right, Google has finally stepped into the ring to take on social-giant Facebook face to face, so to speak. But is it ready for prime time? Well, that remains to be seen, but it’s absolutely worth a pilot run. (more…)

Best Practices in Business Blogging Cheat Sheet

When blogging for your business, you are not only representing yourself, you are representing the brand for which you blog. With that said and because it is critical to follow established guidelines in the bloggersphere, as well as the industry, we have prepared these guidelines to keep you on the right track. Remember, be yourself, be truthful and most of all, be authentic.

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Does Google Adsense make sense for your blog or website

Are you getting enough online traffic to your website or blog to benefit from placing ads on your content pages? Well that’s a good question. Experts say that if you’re getting more than 100 unique visitors a day, you should think about doing it. Using Google AdSense is fast and requires minimal knowledge to set up. (more…)

Social Influence Measurement (Klout, PeerIndex, EmpireAvenue)

With the rise in people utilizing social media for their brands, the number of tools to measure it has also risen. We now have a massive landscape of rising and falling levels of “Social Influence.” Much like the stock market, perceptions about businesses and brands go through a constant state of ebb and flow. This influence measurement is now being tracked by several online tools that can better enable you to understand who and what brands are the movers and shakers, and which are the duds. (more…)

Increase Creative Options and Continually Optimize

One of the most important facts that someone developing your website should convey is that it’s never completed. What that means to a marketer, client and user of that website is that it’s under a constant state of improvement or “optimization” as we refer to it. Unlike a more traditional medium like print or outdoor advertising that depends on using a predetermined readership, drive-by traffic or presumed user data, interactive sites allow for rich measurement with instant result to changes made. (more…)

Increase the ROI of your Call Center

We have known for a long time that computer heuristics can increase the effectiveness of eCommerce sites (see: Amazon). And more recently, we have been applying those modeling techniques to Direct Response to dramatically increase its effectiveness as well.

But did you know you can use this same technology to increase the effectiveness of your call center too? (more…)

Entrepreneurs: The true spirit of business

Reprinted from South Florida Business Journal

An entrepreneur has been defined as a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea, and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome. At the Business Journal, we know they are all that, and much more.

Whether they are striking out on their own or operating within a company, entrepreneurs are the engine of growth for South Florida’s economy – as well as for the nation’s economy. They create products, services and new industries. They generate new jobs and revenue. Most importantly, they provide inspiration within the business community and beyond.

It is because of their special role at this crucial time in our economic recovery that we are publishing our first Entrepreneur Resource Guide. Here you will find advice from expert consultants and entrepreneurs on various topics crucial to entrepreneurial success. Topics range from how to buy a business and getting funding to managing right and getting useful education.

We hope you find the information helpful – especially if you have caught the entrepreneurial spirit that so many South Floridians now have, as our community is once again poised for growth.

TOP FIVE TIPS FOR PURCHASING A BUSINESS OR A FRANCHISE

Andy Cagnetta
CEO, Transworld Business Advisors
  • Go like the pros and have proper representation. A CPA, lawyer and intermediary are essential to the process, and you need them on the team.
  • Do your homework. Due diligence, research and understanding what you are buying is your job, so make sure you do it. No business or opportunity is perfect, but you want to minimize the potential for disaster.
  • Make your own decisions. Yes, get expert advice. But in the end, go with your gut. Most advisers are not risk takers (neither are your in-laws). You’re the entrepreneur, so make decisions. The buck stops with you.
  • Have enough capital. I know you have heard the credit card maxing success stories, but they are few and far between. Remember: Not only does your business need capital, but so do you and your family.
  • Learn to take risks. Risk taking is an everyday job for entrepreneurs, and you have to learn to make leaps of faith often. You won’t always win, but losses are learning experiences, and wins are so very sweet.

TOP FIVE TECHNOLOGY TIPS

Robert Cini
Director, CBIZ Connexia
  • Be prepared with backup solutions and disaster recovery plans. Companies should have a plan in place and identify what their exposure to systems and people might be when unexpected events occur from a possible disaster, such as a power outage, fire, hurricane or flood.
  • Go paperless. A paperless office can save money, boost productivity, save space, make information sharing easier especially for mobile/remote users and minimize environmental damage.
  • Provide the ability to work from anywhere with mobile computing and devices. Keep your workforce connected, secured and productive by enabling them to work remotely. Integrating mobile solutions, virtual desktop interfaces and other applications will help keep your staff connected anytime, from virtually anywhere.
  • Virtualize to improve efficiency of IT resources and applications. Virtualization is running your computing resources in an emulated and consolidated environment. Virtualizing your IT infrastructure lets you reduce IT costs while increasing the efficiency, utilization and flexibility of your assets.
  • Consider the cloud. Cloud solutions are a great way to increase IT capacity or add technology capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure. Be diligent and do your research to make sure a cloud solution is a good fit for your organization.

TOP FIVE MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS

Peggy Nordeen
CEO, Starmark International

  • Budget carefully for marketing, and treat marketing dollars as “business money,” not “personal money.” Entrepreneurs are generally spending their own or their investors’ money in the business, but agonizing over saving pennies wastes time that should be spent figuring out how to make dollars. Depending on your business, project spending 10 to 30 percent of your first-year revenue on marketing.
  • Focus the biggest percentage of your marketing dollars on what you will own and control in the future: your brand, your website, your prospect and customer lists. If you have very little money to design and build a brand, then the name of your company should quickly communicate your product or service. Your website will make you look small or world-class right out of the box, so investing in it from the beginning promises greater returns in the future. The true value of your company from the beginning will be in the growth of your prospect and customer lists.
  • Find an agency/marketing partner who understands business and may be willing to “share future revenue” for a period of time, instead of charging for every project. This is a relatively new concept, but works when entrepreneurs can’t afford world-class talent and agency management believes in their product strongly enough to trade time for future dollars.
  • Build awareness of your offering with both traditional and new/social media in an integrated communications plan. Using the umbrella strategy of your brand, make sure that your messaging is consistent across all media that you plan to use. Understand the different role of each medium as a part of your plan. Facebook ads are cheap, but their main function is to build awareness against specific audience targets. Optimizing your website for search engines and buying keywords provides a strong foundation for any site-based purchasing connected to your business. Print media convinces prospects you are here to stay and worthy of their business, while generating leads. Writing a publicity release for your website every week builds content and provides a mechanism to focus your thoughts on marketing weekly.
  • Realistically plan for your successful results, monitor and optimize. Organize a dashboard report with your agency or the staff person in charge of marketing. This will be based on the objectives and strategies of the marketing program as it relates to sales results. Review the dashboard weekly or monthly, depending on your type of business. If you measure results, they will get better.

TOP FIVE MANAGEMENT AND FINANCE TIPS

Bruce Rector
President, The Rector Group

  • Understand and prepare for your exit strategy. Whether the owners ultimately intend to sell to private equity, a strategic investor or pass the company to others (often family members), there are critical actions to be taken to prepare your company for that transition. Ignore those to your detriment.
  • Build the right management team. Regardless of the business model, a company can only go where its management team is capable of taking it. Create a plan to identify and attract the best of the best.
  • Create a culture that reflects positive company values. Focus on creating a strongly positive corporate culture. Doing so is tantamount to creating a secret weapon: Happy employees add far more value than frustrated, frightened employees.
  • Clean up your corporate documents. Few things can damage a company more rapidly than an unforeseen legal controversy (often between owners), which relies upon proper corporate documents for resolution. Ensure that your corporate documents are up-to-date, properly executed and accurately reflect the understanding between all parties.
  • Get a handle on liquidity. Entrepreneurs need to understand what their near- and intermediate-term cash requirements are – and why. Create a reliable cash forecasting mechanism. Monitor it closely.

TOP FIVE SALES TIPS

Greta Schulz
President and CEO, Schulz Business

  • Set prospecting goals. Prospecting needs to be done consistently, not just when you aren’t busy. Create a mix of prospecting activities: cold calling, networking, meeting with alliances in your community and revisiting past clients. Set goals for each, and follow them.
  • When meeting with a prospect, shut up. Sales should not be a one-way event. When you speak, ask good, thought-provoking, open-ended questions – and then listen.
  • Make sure you bring up the subject of money before you prepare your proposal. You need to make sure you both have a clear understanding of what the costs are and a clear agreement on that dollar amount.
  • Recap every conversation in writing. It’s important to be clear in your writing and put down exactly what you understood was important to them, what your money discussion was and what a next step is. This needs to be written in an e-mail and sent to them within a day of your meeting.
  • Get a clear next step on every appointment. Never leave an appointment, whether on the phone or in person, without a date and time for the follow-up and a statement of exactly what will happen at your next appointment.